


Vent Away Redux

by SquareWatermelon



Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Gen, Sharing, Talking, touch as a love language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:07:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29829531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquareWatermelon/pseuds/SquareWatermelon
Summary: Post 5x10 "Nemesis Games"Holden and Amos not only want to talk, they need to talk.
Relationships: Amos Burton - Relationship, Jim Holden - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	Vent Away Redux

The auto doc was a very useful bit of technology. It incorporated the very best medical knowledge without the drawbacks of having to ask another human being for help. And without the need for medical personal, there was room for another solider; so the Martian manual on the screen bragged. For most people this was an ideal situation. Expertise with no need for small talk. However, Holden didn’t share this common ideology. He loathed the auto doc for its sterility. Or maybe he hated it because he and his crew had to use it far too often. Perhaps he hated it because it was Martian tech. And deep down it revealed his true Earther resentment, the strife, the prejudice that was spoon fed by the culture that had raised him. Holden sighed. Maybe all and none of that at the same time, but the fact remained he had a problem. And he didn’t know how to do, what he came here to do. Holden sat down; a rush of clarity hit him. Alex would have known what to do. He had the most knowledge about how everything operated on the Rocinante. 

Alex. 

“You okay Cap?” 

Holden was pulled from his thoughts by the question. By the voice and by the sudden change of his emotions from grief to gratitude.  
And yet the words didn’t come to him to respond. He smiled though. The piercing stare directed at him was its own unique kind of comfort. 

“Not like you to be quiet,” Amos prodded. There was a pause, almost hesitation and the tiniest speck of a quiver in his voice when he spoke again.  
“And I don’t like finding you in here.”

Holden exhaled a long deep breathe. The again was implied although he didn’t say it. How that brought him comfort, he wasn’t sure. But, they had all been through the ringer lately. Maybe it was mushy or maudlin but he could stop staring at that earnest quizzical expression on Amos’ face. 

“I’m okay,” Holden finally spoke. He stared at Amos, holding his gaze. That seemed to be enough for both of them. Until almost with defiance, Amos pushed the conversation to restart.  
“Do you need to talk Cap? Offer still stands. Vent away.”

This time without hesitation, Holden took the plunge.  
“I’m trying to be pro-active. I came in here because instead of denying the stress I want to do something about it,” he closed his eyes and stretched his neck and shoulders. 

“But, then I realized I don’t know all the settings for the auto-doc, or if it even can give a massage. And now I feel like an idiot.”

“A brave idiot?” Amos teased. 

It was more heartfelt a statement than Holden was expecting. 

Holden cleared his throat as the emotion once again assaulted him. 

“Let me do it,” Amos offered. He walked closer.

“You don’t have to,” Holden automatically rebuffed.

“Damn Cap,” Amos said with a chuckle. “Of course I don’t have to do it. I want to do it.” When Amos spoke again he was still laughing, “I’ve missed your weird logic.”

“What is so weird about that?”

“Everything you do is weird to me. But, like a drug, I keep coming back for my next hit.”

Holden frowned at the strange comment that still filled him with warmth. 

“I’m comparing you to caffeine, you should be flattered Cap.”

“Oh,” Holden simply said as he continued to stare at his friend. “Thank you.”

“Besides,” Amos continued, “I don’t think we should get into a whole debate about what is weird given all the shit we’ve seen.”

Holden couldn’t argue with that. 

“I can reciprocate sometime for you,” Holden offered.

“Ew gross,” Amos said, “Don’t know where your little hands have been. Besides I learned this for clients and it’s a one way street.”

Without hesitation or delay, he simply moved behind him and dug his fingers into Holden’s very tense shoulders. The captain groaned his approval. He felt like he should comment on the nonchalant way Amos just dropped bits of his past into the conversation, but the massage was distracting him. 

“Like putty in my hands,” Amos observed. “I like touching you.”

“Wow,” was all Holden eloquently said. Yet another thing that Amos was very good at that was completely unexpected.  
Amos did not normally run his mouth when he didn’t have anything specific to say and yet he found himself unable to stay quiet around Holden. So, he filled the silence with shoptalk. 

“Boss doesn’t know if she should take Alex’s privileges out of the Roci’s system. Said it doesn’t feel right. But, Peaches told me when she was on a ship and someone died they had a little ceremony when they had to reprogram the commands. We could do that. Told her I would ask you.”

Holden groaned. Something about Alex, Naomi, Clarissa, but the names ran together and he couldn’t focus.

“You are very good at this,” he weakly choked out. 

“I am,” Amos said frankly. “Maybe now wasn’t the right time to ask,” Amos chuckled.

“You’re right again, kind of hard to concentrate. Especially when you keep doing that.”

There was silence for a few minutes as Amos dug into the taunt muscles and Holden just groaned. Amos realized he liked the silence just as much as he liked talking for no reason. Because he liked the company, no matter the circumstances. And there were very few times that Amos had ever been proud of himself, but this was one of them. 

“Okay,” Holden finally said as the words unjumbled and he could focus again.

“Yes, I like the idea of a ceremony. Alex needs to be honored in every way we can think of, so that is a good start.”

“Peaches has good ideas,” Amos offered with enthusiasm and not even a hint of irony about her past.

Holden furrowed his brow, so many questions came into his mind but he didn’t’ ask any of them. He trusted that Amos would share on his own, eventually. Perhaps he should be more alarmed at her arrival, but he couldn’t find the energy. He knew that Avasarala had granted Amos permission to visit Clarissa in jail, because she had sent him a message that she was monitoring his mechanic. Whatever happened after the rocks hit, all bets were off. Some blanks didn’t need to be filled in because Amos had returned to the Roci and that was what mattered to him.

“I’m sure glad the Pastor wouldn’t let me kill Peaches,” Amos said quietly, almost a whisper.

“When did that happen?” Holden asked with surprise. Apparently, he didn’t have to wait long for Amos to talk about their guest. 

“You’d left with fake Miller,” Amos simply said. “So, she was kinda in charge. I sure as shit wanted to put her down at the time.” Amos paused. His fingers moved with confidence and authority giving the massage but his words felt clumsy and awkward. 

“Did Anna call her Peaches?” Holden asked. “Is that where it came from?”

“No dice Cap,” Amos said. “That nickname is just mine. She needed it. Needed a new name.”

There was another moment of silence and this time Holden spoke first, offering encouragement as though he could sense Amos’ hesitation. 

“Go on,” he prodded.

Amos sighed. He was once again glad he was giving the massage, as it was easy for him to focus on that. Reminiscing certainly wasn’t something he would normally do. But, now it was an itch he had to scratch.

“Boss says people can change. I think she is right because she normally is….” Amos chuckled but then continued, his speech picking up speed as he spoke. Just a little more confidence with each new revelation. Amos knew that if his words weren’t perfect, it didn't matter; cause Holden would translate them. 

“Peaches is a killer, but she doesn’t want to be. She isn’t like Murty, when it comes to killing. That fucker was like a Baltimore special, a hood that got off on pain and enjoyed that control. Peaches is different. She was molded, like me.”

Holden let that sink in for a minute. There was a comfortable silence between them. No expectations, no forcing the conversation. The massage was the language of touch connecting them. Finally, Holden brought the conversation back into motion.

“Nicknames can be powerful. When I was a child Father Anton called me Jameson.”

“I don’t get it Cap,” Amos said.

Holden laughed affectionately at the honesty. 

“Jameson is an expensive blended whiskey,” Holden explained.

“Still don’t get it Cap.”

“I have eight parents; I’m a blend of all of them. I hated it when I was a kid, because it brought attention to something I thought was really embarrassing; being like a science project. But, when I was older and I actually tasted that whiskey, I understood the love behind that nickname.”

“Huh,” Amos said at the explanation. He thought for a minute and decided to share something back.

“My friend Lydia called me a ‘leaky faucet’ is that a nickname?”

Holden turned his head as much as possible, trying to get a glimpse of the expression on Amos’ face. He knew the significance, the trust behind the fact Amos was sharing, and he was honored.

“Your friend on Earth that died?” Holden asked for clarification. 

“Yeah, she did what she could when I was a kid. She’d say all kinds of stuff like that.”

“Is that how or why you got into mechanics?” Holden asked trying to grasp at straws and find a connection to that description. 

“Hell no, nothing like that till I was up the well and on Luna,” Amos said with surprise.

“Well then, I’m not sure,” Holden said. A leaking faucet was not a pleasant thing, more of a problem to be fixed. But, perhaps it was a loving gesture he wondered. Her attempt to fix, the unfixable? 

“If she was affectionate when she talked,” Holden proposed, “It could have been a nickname. The thing about nicknames is they are ephemeral, they defy any kind of real translation without context.”

“She was,” Amos paused at the revelation. He didn’t know why he wanted to talk about Lydia with Holden, but he couldn’t stop now that he had started. And he knew that he had the Cap’s attention so that helped.

“Lydia taught me to be an anchor, don’t try to rise up when you should stay down. Street rules. I was thinking about her a lot on the mud ball.”

“Mud ball?” Holden laughed. 

“Yeah,” Amos said, “Earth was a cesspool before the rocks dropped.”

Holden thought about Amos’ offered nickname and the graphic drawn on the Roci. He had always wondered about the connection but had never wanted to pry. But, now Amos had offered it up some more puzzle pieces un-prompted. 

“Without Lydia,” Amos said quietly, “I wouldn’t have Naomi and without Naomi I wouldn’t have you Cap,” Amos said almost a whisper in his ear.

“I don’t want this to turn into a competition,” Holden said with affection, “But I missed you more than you missed me.”

“No worries Cap. Of course you did, you’re better than me.”

Holden made a sharp offended tutting noise, but Amos simply dug harder into the massage to shut him up. 

“I surrender,” Holden groaned. 

“In Baltimore, I remembered more about Lydia,” Amos continued, “How she treated emotions. To her it was like shoplifting. It’s okay to take what you need, but they don’t belong to you and never get caught with them.”

Holden turned around and Amos’ hands immediately stopped the massage and fell to his side. There were tears just barely being held back on the Captain’s face. 

“That is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” Holden said in shock. 

He wanted to get up and hug Amos, so he did. His arms were just barely long enough to reach around his friend as he tried to squeeze him. Amos kept his arms at his side, pinned underneath Holden’s awkward hug. Just like with Naomi, he had no idea how to respond to such an intimate, but not sexual position. He tried to remember if Lydia had ever hugged him and he wasn’t sure. Maybe she had, maybe not. After all, there was a lot of blank space in his memory, purged for very good reasons. 

“Nah,” Amos said dismissing the revelation. “It’s not sad Cap, it’s nothing, that is the point.”

Holden didn’t say anything in response, just squeezed him again. 

“Sit back down Cap,” Amos said softly. 

Holden released him and wiped his eyes. Amos took that as his cue to push him back into the chair and immediately resumed the massage. He was relieved to have something to do with his hands again. Holden took a deep breath, the massage or the sentiment or maybe both were hitting him on so many different levels, he felt like an antiquated pinball machine. A relic from long ago. 

“Feeling better Cap?” Amos asked. His voice hitching in such a minuet way, only a trained expert could have been able to detect the emotion behind the question. To understand, that a burden had been taken off Amos as well. 

Holden blew out his breathe and nodded. 

“I know we have lots to discuss still, but I’m gonna change the subject for now,” Holden said. He was rewarded for this decision by the small hitch of Amos’ breathing exhaling in relief. 

“I’m need a favor from you.”

“You mean, another favor don’t ya Cap?” Amos punctuated the question by increasing the pressure of the massage.

Holden had to laugh at how giddy it made him feel. It was a moment to savor. 

“Yes, you are permanently hired in this new capacity. I’ll add it to your job description and pay accordingly.”

Holden couldn’t see the expression on Amos’ face but he imagined he was smiling because his touch was so suddenly so gentle.

“This favor is actually for Naomi,” Holden continued.

“Oh,” Amos said, “Sure, anything for boss.”

“My parents are coming to Luna. And of course they want to meet my crew, my family.”

“Shit,” Amos said, “I just escaped an apocalyptic horror show and you wanna inflect that on me?”

“I need you to be the buffer for Naomi,” Holden continued ignoring the joke. This was after all what was making him so stressed out in the first place. 

“They are gonna be a wreck leaving the farm. Most of them have never left Montana, let alone left Earth. So, no matter how much they deny it, their gonna be devastated. After all, no one knows if they can ever return. They may have lost everything they spent their entire lives building. And .…” Holden couldn’t finish. He felt guilty imagining the worst from them, but he couldn’t risk their heartbreak being turned even subconsciously into blame directed at a belter, at Naomi. 

“Damn. Eight of you, that is a so many feelings Cap. Sure Luna can handle the weight of that?” 

Holden laughed at the frank tone of voice. 

“They got clearance from Avasarala, so the math must be okay.”

“No worries Cap, I’ll charm their pants off and they won’t know what hit them.”

“Thank you, but please leave their pants on and don’t hit them.”

“So bossy,” Amos said playfully.

Holden closed his eyes savoring the unconditional promise; he knew he now had from Amos.

“Okay that’s all settled. Now, relax,” Amos instructed.

Holden did as he was told.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I just love these boys and how they love each other so much.


End file.
